


Apart

by kylosbrickhousebody



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon Related, Canon Universe, Eventual Smut, F/M, Feels, Fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-24 17:15:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17104775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kylosbrickhousebody/pseuds/kylosbrickhousebody
Summary: A young woman, jaded by past heartbreak, labors to run a pub.Her village is nestled deep within a cluster of Outer Rim territories. Nothing happens in her town--more to the point, nothing is supposed to happen in her town. She's anonymous. She's a nobody.Still, the man in the grey coat drops off secretive parchments. Sometimes she wishes she could ignore them. Sometimes they're all she has.





	Apart

_34 ABY_

 

* * *

 

 

Short crust and hot water crust pastry can’t be used interchangeably. She knows this, of course, which is why she rolls a lump of dough in a forward motion, distributing the fats. They’ve already been heated and mixed with water–a defining feature of the latter pastry–and form the core strength behind its signature free-standing nature. The young woman reaches for a pie dolly. It’s a short, stubby contraption, carved from beechwood from down near the mills. She grasps the small circular handle on top.

This is how she makes blackbeak pies, gamey structures that she raises by hand. They turn out stout and asymmetrical, wholly lacking in the finesse of a crimped edge or of latticework. They’re simple, and they taste like home, and that’ll do. The customers don’t need anything more.

She works under the expanse of deeply-grained wood crossbeams supporting the floor above. She lives on the second story; the first, however, is reserved for her pub. It’s a homey place by design, nestled into the foot of a rolling hill. Stone from the quarry lines the walls, fighting against the forces of the dirt packed against three sides. Windows are lacking, but that’s okay: she has a big one over her bed, and that seems to make up for it. Besides, the lack of natural light works for a bar, she thinks; there’s never a wrong time to order a beer, or to stoke the fire, or anything else—not if you don’t know what time it is outside.

The hearth crackles on the far side of the large, open room, embers glowing a deep orange. Reflections dance across granite impurities and up across chocolate wood. Matchbooks rest in scattered, unlit candles. It’s probably a fire hazard, but she’ll lose the little books otherwise.

She hums to herself, taking a quiet moment to top off the patron at the bar top. A cluster of others—some stragglers, a few regulars—keep to themselves by the cushioned planks shoved up against the walls. One man bends at the waist, hunched over a rickety table upon which he’s rested a quarterly. He squints, face contorting with the angry expression that accompanies intense focus. Others chat in hushed tones, carrying on private conversations she’s not privy to. It’s a quiet night.

She places a dolly on a disc of dough, working it up and around the cylinder in movements that alternate between gentle nudges and frustrated huffs. Occasionally, one of the sides will wear too thin and crack. Sometimes a pie or two leaks in the oven. Mostly, though, she manages. After all, she’s been doing this for years now. It’s good, honest work, and—

“Hey, Noor.”

The young woman jumps. “God, Maude, you scared me.”

Her companion smiles, a broad woman with tawny hair and slightly sunken, viridian eyes.

“Didn’t mean to.”

“’Course not.” She slides a pint of house ale across the bar top, bending slightly to re-flour her hands. “And how’s your day?”

“Ah, y’know, same ole. Chugging along.”

“And Jerry?”

“Well, see, that’s the more interesting ‘un.”

Noor smiles indulgently, dipping her fingers into a small basin of water. She adds it to the crust of one pie, coaxing it up the dolly, and listens.

“They got ‘em working down in the mines again. You know—the ones up north, past town? He’s down in the desh tunnels mostly. Real grimy, those ones. Scared for his health, you know? It’s not good to be breathing that shit. They got him doing 15-hour days, too. Supervisor said something big’s coming around.”

The woman quirks an eyebrow. She doesn’t look up. “Oh? And what’s that?”

“Nobody’s sayin’. Just that something big’s a-comin.”

“That’s probably not a good thing,” she says, quietly, mostly to herself. She tilts a pan searing meat. It sizzles; fumes thick with onion rise and burn her nose. Her eyes water. She reduces the heat.

“Prolly not, no.”

It’s a sleepy, humble town hidden among other sleepy, humble towns on a sleepy, humble planet. A union dispute was the last raucous episode; it led to an only marginal increase in wages. Nothing happens here—more to the point, nothing is _supposed to_ happen here. The planet has barely escaped mass industrialization, which she considers the largest of many countable blessings. Few other Outer Rim territories have been so lucky. She’s not eager for change.

“And you?” Maude prompts.

“Hm?”

“How are you?”

“Same as usual, yeah. Slept a little funny last night, but I’m sure it’ll be alright.”

The customer wiggles her eyebrows. It’s a strange thing to witness: how the suggestion smooths the harder lines of her face, how her squared-off shoulders sag and relax.

“Got company, do you?”

“You know I haven’t,” Noor mutters, distractedly, boring holes into the pie filling that she scoops delicately into the little doughy structures she’s formed.

“Thought something might’ve changed.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No.”

And that’s that, as far as she’s concerned. The younger woman wipes her hands off on a soiled apron wrapped low around her hips. The pies are topped with top crusts, as lovingly as the rest has been constructed, and the oven dial is prepped. It’s opened a moment later; a tray of fresh pies is pushed in and clatters against the heated metal rails. She sets a timer.

“You could if you want, you know,” her friend says gruffly, though it contains a distinct streak of kindness. _Too_ kind, almost, as if she’s taking pity. She isn’t, but the other woman has no way of knowing.

“I don’t want.”

There’s a sigh; her companion picks at her fingernails. “You can’t do this forever.”

“Do _what_ —”

“This _torch_ , Noor! This torch. You can’t carry it for that boy forever. Maybe, I’d, you know, understand it more if you told me more about him—”

The younger woman pauses, a hairs distance from the sink, and wipes her hands down her front again as if wiping away something more dangerous than bake-stuffs.

“—I get that childhood loves are powerful, I do, bu—”

“He’s dead.”

She says it with resolute calm. There’s no rise and fall within her chest. There’s no movement at all. She just stares, blank, factual.

“He’s dead. And he died a long time ago. So that’s not what this is. This is just— _fuck_ —what I want. It’s just what I want.”

She’s vaguely aware of the brass door swinging open somewhere far to her right, of footsteps carrying another patron over the threshold. Someone approaches the bar for a top-up. She refills their stein, wordlessly, and wipes down the granite. A small clump of butter and flour and whatever else refuses to move. She presses down harder.

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m not.”

Noor clicks her tongue against her teeth. “He taught me many things, and eventually it ended, and he happened to die—as we all will, god willing.”

“You’re not—” a breath is sucked in, “I just thought…”

“I discovered some things about people that I’d rather not discover again. That’s all there is to it.”

An understanding nod punctuates the conversation, which changes course and carries on, lighter and more insignificant. Noor fiddles with a twist of wire she wears on a chain. She re-opens the oven after a while, reaching to fill each pie with jelly. It’s a congealed mix of collagen and boiled gelatin that preserves the meat and adds another texture to the dish. When she’s done, she leaves the pies to round out their baking time. A few pockets of gravy bubble on browning tops.

After a while, her companion slaps credits down on the counter. The older of the pair stands with a characteristic lack of grace, stretching a sweater over too-broad shoulders. They exchange simple goodbyes, and the women go on with their days.

The rest of the night passes quickly. A few men from the lumber yard wander in, dragging mud and soil into her freshly-mopped entryway. She’ll clean it again tonight. The dinner crowd swells; sometimes, it feels like the entire town manages to file into the pub. She tops up mugs placed haphazardly across the jam-packed bar. Spirited conversations carry on all around her, laughter piercing the air. The place thrums with a distracting bustle that she’s grateful for.

She doesn’t notice when the man in the grey coat appears. He moves with the physical presence of a lilt, slow and off-kilter, somehow managing the smooth confidence needed to render himself nearly invisible to all but the most alert eyes. He affixes a package to the kitchen rack at the end of the bar. Just as quickly, he disappears.

It’s a difficult bugger to spot, that parcel. It comes wrapped in parchment and tied with coarse string, just like all the others. They often come hidden within shipments; once, she found a thin dossier between boxes of new silverware. Sometimes—more rarely—the man delivers them himself. He never chooses the same drop point twice. He does, however, always wear the grey coat. She doesn’t know why. Perhaps he’s discovered, through years of investigation, that grey is the most innocuous colour. Maybe he’s conducted full studies into the matter. She wouldn’t be surprised.

She lays eyes on it well past closing time, when the chairs have been lifted onto tables and the sweat of exhaustion pools on her brow. She snatches up the package, clutching it close to her as if apologizing for neglecting it. It’s tucked neatly, briskly, into one of the large pockets in her skirts.

Noor makes her way to the rickety, narrow staircase behind the wall closest the bar. She ascends, slowly, in darkness, until she sees the sliver of moonlight cast across her room. She lights a candle that rests atop a small end table. It casts a faint glimmer; warm, golden light dances across her floors. They’re a faint hardwood—not the rich, sturdy timber of the crossbeams, for she couldn’t afford to use it everywhere—and, unlike the first level, dusty. She hardly spends any time in her quarters. She finds that it’s best when she’s not left to her own thoughts, even if her instinct is to retreat.

Her room is spacious; it mirrors the open space downstairs. A section is cordoned off for a large bathroom, thick wall separating it from the living space. There’s a small kitchenette for storing and preparing simple foods. To its left rests her bed. A place for the mattress has been carved out of the raised wood surround a half-hexagonal bay window. Mismatched patchwork quilts cover the bottom sheet, worn thin in many spots. She climbs into the hollow space every night, cocooned in its four sides, and falls asleep in the divot. She can’t fully stretch out, but that’s alright: she sleeps curled up anyways.

The only other possession of note is a desk, which is pressed up against the far wall. Papers, strewn across the desk, cover the surface entirely. Some are assembled into neater stacks, dog-eared and marked. Others—most of them—are simply scattered, out of order and semi-random. A lone page is tacked to the wall above the desk. A small trash can at its foot brims with contents. Parchment paper, torn. Twine, cut. A stack of unopened packages rest beside the can. She hasn’t opened a parcel since that day in the summer.

The woman reaches under her pillow and makes an exchange: recent parcel for newest. She crosses the threshold to her desk, placing the outdated one atop the stack of unopened deliveries. Her fingers sweep, idly, across the papers spread open on the table. Her eyes wander. They wander, as they tend to do, right to the fragile paper pinned into a flank of wall.

 

_2593: Kylo Ren Succeeds Snoke as Supreme Leader, First Order_

 

She tucks herself into bed a while later—she’s changed and washed her face—and stares out the window. Another woman across the town, which glimmers lowly in the near distance, might be saying her prayers.

She won’t.

She thumbs makeshift curtains together until no moonlight manages to bleed through. Then, silently, she closes her eyes, clears her mind, and falls asleep.

She rolls back and forth, alternating which side she favours most throughout the night.

Slowly, eventually, her fingers close around the wrappings of warm, waxy parchment.


End file.
